Christmas came and New Year’s Eve, and Jennifer spent them alone. There had been a heavy snowfall and the city looked like a gigantic Christmas card. Jennifer walked the streets, watching pedestrians hurrying to the warmth of their homes and families, and she ached with a feeling of emptiness. She missed her father terribly. She was glad when the holidays were over. Nineteen seventy is going to be a better year, Jennifer told herself.
On Jennifer’s worst days, Ken Bailey would cheer her up. He took her out to Madison Square Garden to watch the Rangers play, to a disco club and to an occasional play or movie. Jennifer knew he was attracted to her, and yet he kept a barrier between them.
In March, Otto Wenzel decided to move to Florida with his wife.
“My bones are getting too old for these New York winters,” he told Jennifer.
“I’ll miss you.” Jennifer meant it. She had grown genuinely fond of him.
“Take care of Ken.”
Jennifer looked at him quizzically.
“He never told you, did he?”
“Told me what?”
He hesitated, then said, “His wife committed suicide. He blames himself.”
Jennifer was shocked. “How terrible! Why—why did she do it?”
“She caught Ken in bed with a young blond man.”
“Oh, my God!”
“She shot Ken and then turned the gun on herself. He lived. She didn’t.”
“How awful! I had no idea that…that—”
“I know. He smiles a lot, but he carries his own hell with him.”
“Thanks for telling me.”
When Jennifer returned to the office, Ken said, “So old Otto’s leaving us.”
“Yes.”
Ken Bailey grinned. “I guess it’s you and me against the world.”
“I guess so.”
And in a way, Jennifer thought, it is true.
Jennifer looked at Ken with different eyes now. They had lunches and dinners together, and Jennifer could detect no signs of homosexuality about him but she knew that Otto Wenzel had told her the truth: Ken Bailey carried his own private hell with him.
A few clients walked in off the street. They were usually poorly dressed, bewildered and, in some instances, out-and-out nut cases.
Prostitutes came in to ask Jennifer to handle their bail, and Jennifer was amazed at how young and lovely some of them were. They became a small but steady source of income. She could not find out who sent them to her. When she mentioned it to Ken Bailey, he shrugged in a gesture of ignorance and walked away.
Whenever a client came to see Jennifer, Ken Bailey would discreetly leave. He was like a proud father, encouraging Jennifer to succeed.
Jennifer was offered several divorce cases and turned them down. She could not forget what one of her law professors had once said: Divorce is to the practice of law what proctology is to the practice of medicine. Most divorce lawyers had bad reputations. The maxim was that when a married couple saw red, lawyers saw green. A high-priced divorce lawyer was known as a bomber, for he would use legal high explosives to win a case for a client and, in the process, often destroyed the husband, the wife and the children.
A few of the clients who came into Jennifer’s office were different in a way that puzzled her.
They were well dressed, with an air of affluence about them, and the cases they brought to her were not the nickel-and-dime cases Jennifer had been accustomed to handling. There were estates to be settled that amounted to substantial sums of money, and lawsuits that any large firm would have been delighted to represent.
“Where did you hear about me?” Jennifer would ask.
The replies she got were always evasive. From a friend…I read about you…your name was mentioned at a party…It was not until one of her clients, in the course of explaining his problems, mentioned Adam Warner that Jennifer suddenly understood.
“Mr. Warner sent you to me, didn’t he?”
The client was embarrassed. “Well, as a matter of fact, he suggested it might be better if I didn’t mention his name.”
Jennifer decided to telephone Adam. After all, she did owe him a debt of thanks. She would be polite, but formal. Naturally, she would not let him get the impression that she was calling him for any reason other than to express her appreciation. She rehearsed the conversation over and over in her mind. When Jennifer finally got up enough nerve to telephone, a secretary informed her that Mr. Warner was in Europe and was not expected back for several weeks. It was an anticlimax that left Jennifer depressed.